How To Install A Ground Anchor | Ultimate Bike Security

– Locking up your bikes
is really important even if you do have somewhere
secure to store them, like in your house or in a garage. Now ground anchors or
wall anchors are the best and the safest, and the
most secure option to use, but they’re only useful if
you install them correctly and you know how to use them. (whoosh) (sword slash) Now first things first, you’re going to need to get yourself a good quality ground anchor. Now, like when you buy any
lock for your bicycle though, they’re sold with ratings
to their security. There are Thatcham rating, which is generally toward
motor bikes and stuff, and then you get a Sold Secure ratings. Now, I’ve got a few
different examples here and they’re very different as well. This one here is quite unusual. This one is called an Air Lock. This actually mounts on to a wall. This is quite a cool idea if you’ve got maybe an
apartment or something and you’ve got a posh bike, and you want to hang it
and it locks securely. Works nicely, but that’s not
what I’m going to be using today. I’m going to be using
something a bit more traditional. These are more traditional ground anchors that go on the floor. They have a cover over top of them, so if you fitted one in
the garage for example, you can drive your car
over top of it no problem. There fundamentally is a a plate with a big shackle loop on there, and basically it bolts to the floor and you lock everything to this. Now, where you place your
ground anchor or wall anchor, is absolutely vital because
it adds additional security. Now, there’s a big school
of thought that says by mounting them on the wall, you’re going to make it even
harder for a thief to get to it, ’cause you could mount it on the wall say, that back wall there. Likewise, although this is designed, and many of the are designed
so you can drive over them, if you had them on the
floor in your garage, putting them in the middle of
floor means it is technically a bit of a weak point as well, so you want to make sure that whatever you’re using this for, it could be for a motor bike, it could be for bicycles, you try and position it in a place that is the hardest
angle to get any work on for what would be an attacker. What I’m going to do is
mount it underneath here, quite close to the wall behind me, so then I can daisy chain
all of my bikes together and I can drop another chain down to it, and so effectively,
they’re all locked together and they’re all locked to the ground. Pretty much the safest
position they can be in. Just think about it when you mount them. Now, you can mount these to
various different surfaces. You can put the in the back of a van. That would be a great idea,
but of course that means putting a big bolt through
the van to do that. In this case, I’m mounting
to a concrete floor, which gives you two options. There’s also different
recommendations depending on which brand you buy. There’s several on the market, so do a bit of homework for that. This one, uses proper concrete fixings. Now, I have a solid
concrete base under here, so that is absolutely fine for it. However, if you don’t have
a solid concrete base, or maybe you’ve put in some sort of filler or something like that, putting these fixings
in is not a good idea because it can damage the concrete and it can weaken the mount. The idea is that these
are permanent fixings, so once they’re in, fit and forget until you actually have to dig the ground up to get them out. The other option available to you if you haven’t got a
proper, solid concrete base, is a chemical or a resin fixing. That involves still drilling
the same sort of hole to take one of these fixings, but instead of the fixing bit grabbing onto the concrete and expanding, you actually fill that
hole with a resin mix. It’s a special chemical
bonding agent basically, and that makes for an extremely good fit, and you can screw into
that and it will not damage the concrete or whatever
it is you’re screwing into, and it will give you just
equally as permanent a bond. But for today, I’m using
the tradition ones, straight into the concrete. Now, depending on which
ground anchor you have, you’re going to need a
few tools for the job. First up, you’re going to
want some protective eyewear because bits of concrete
can go flying everywhere. You’re going to need some drill bits. Depending on what sort of drill you have, I’ve gone SDS Plus Drill, so I’m using SDS 16 and eight ml bits. Eight ml to drill the pilot hole, and 16 to drill the bigger hole. You’re also going to need a hammer, and you’re going to need
a really good drill. Now, what I mean by that,
is not a cordless drill. You want a proper plug in option because basically you’ve
got a lot more welly for really getting into that concrete. It’s going to make the
job a lot more easier. I’ve got an SDS Plus drill. It’s going to make light
work of getting into there. Now, something to factor in is depending on where you’re working, it could be quite loud, so you may want some ear defenders. (smooth music) There’s a few steps to the process here. First is identifying where
you’re going to put your anchor. This is where I’ve marked
mine out on the ground. I’ve actually marked around with a knife, because on top of my concrete floor, I have this heavy duty rubber flooring. I actually want to peel away a section so this is completely flush on the floor, just so it can be as secure as possible. I actually did this, but there we go, I won’t be needing that. That is going to sit there, it’s
going to sit flush on the ground. (digital beeps)
Okay, so I’m in position. There’s three holes. I’m going to do one at a time to make sure it lines up correctly. First up, it’s just to mark the pilot hole using the smaller drill bit. (drilling)
(light music) Time for the second hole. Change those bits on there. This is the big hole,
ready to accept the plug. (drilling) It’s absolutely vital that you can get the dust out of the hole, otherwise there’s a chance that the plug won’t grip properly, so make sure you take
you’re time doing this. There’s no rush. (vacuum suction) Okay, so with the hole clean, you want to get the first plug into place. Snug, but it should go in okay. You may need to tap it. This case, I’ve needed to. Just going to remove the
allen bolt from there. I’m going to line this up in to the hole so I know exactly where
the others need to be now, so, I’m going to do my
pilot holes for number two, then the bigger hole, and
then I’m just going to check it lines up just before
doing the final hole, just to make sure they’re
in exactly the right place. (drilling) Now, clear that one out
and the last bit into place in the hole. Sometimes you need to just
check they’re in okay. Okay, so now it’s time
to tighten the bolts up and make sure that they pull the anchor plate onto the ground. There you go, I can feel that pulling now. Just got to make sure that I’m applying equal
pressure to all of them. You want to tighten these things up so it really pulls the
plugs into the concrete to hold it in place. Now that’s in place, but to further secure it
’cause you can obviously still see the exposed allen
bolts, allen heads even, I’m actually going to
hammer in ball bearings into the top of these. That means you cannot get them out again. (hammering) Solid. That is not going anywhere. Now finally, I can just
put the top cover in place. Doesn’t really do a lot. It’s more there just to make sure if you got a car or anything, you can drive over it, but
still it’s an addition layer to prevent it being tampered with, and this just bolts into place
with the supplied allen bolts and then our ground anchor is in position. There we go. There’s out ground anchor ready for use. (whoosh) Now we’ve got our secure
ground anchor in place, it’s all about how you
lock your bikes together. As you can see, I’ve got
a fleet of bikes here. They’re all my work bikes, and I like to lock each
bike to each other, and then I’m going to lock
that successive chain of bikes to the ground anchor using a big chain. Now whilst D type locks
are really, really strong, and they’re great for
when you’re out and about ’cause they’re a bit
more convenient to store on the bike or perhaps in a bag, you may as well take
advantage of using big, heavy duty chains when you’re at home, because they don’t have to go anywhere. You can get some seriously
heavy duty chains and use them accordingly. But something that’s
really important to say, is bare in the mind that we’re
in an indoor location here, so nothing is unbreakable. You can break U type locks or D type locks using bottle jacks. You can even get through
them with angle grinders. It’s all about how much time,
and how much noise it takes to get through them. So, you want to make it
as difficult as possible for a would be attacker
to get to your bike. If you got a chain on
the floor for example, you’re going to be able to apply leverage with bolt croppers to do that, so you really don’t want to have any excessive locks on the floor. You want to keep it all off
the ground as much as possible and it makes it much
harder to work on them. Now, heavy duty chain locks are definitely the best
for this type of job, but you might also want to
have a cable extension lock. I’m going to chain all my bikes together, and chain ’em to the ground, but ’cause I’ve also got wheels
and various other things, I’m going to run this
through the chains basically and through all of the wheels, so everything is locked together to make it as hard as possible, and I’ve got various locks here and it’ going to be pretty secure. The final thing, just a reminder, is if you’re buying new locks
for something like this, make sure that you register the keys. Make sure you split the keys up so you’ve got a bunch of keys, with single keys for each
successive lock that you use and you keep those together, and you can keep your spare keys somewhere completely
separate and somewhere safe. Keep them registered
’cause insurance companies do like to know this sort of stuff. As always, be careful with
your bikes and your belongings. Well there you go. That fundamentally is how
you install a ground anchor, and hopefully you’ve had
some advice on how to chain your bikes up using one
to maximize that security. We’ve got a few more security videos coming soon on GMBM Tech
with far more information about stuff like CCTV,
bike locking up stuff, locking your bike up in public. So, keep an eye out for those videos. In the mean time, for a couple more videos click up here if you want to see Blake Sampson’s Mega Bike Check. That is his Scout Hard
Tail in rest Megavalanche, and click down here to see
how to look after your bike and wash your bike if
you live in an apartment. As always, don’t forge to
give us a huge thumbs up here at GMBN Tech, and if you like the content don’t forget to share and subscribe. Cheers guys.

Kryptonite Stronghold looks like something an angle grinder would cut through relatively quickly… if someone is going to be burglarizing, wouldn't they bring that kind of tool? maybe you only have stupid burglars. if angle grinders are a concern, they make anchors with rollers like the Almax Defiant

i would highly suggest going over to the "LockPickingLawyer" channel and seeing some of his reviews on bike locks. he shows some of the ways to get into locks and how hard it is to get into them through lock picking and more destructive ways. one thing i have learned from him is that cables are super weak to bolt cutters so some high quality heavy duty chains would be best when locking up your bike and not the hardware store kind of chains. would be really interesting to see a sort of collaboration video with GMBN Tech and LockPickingLawyer where he talks about some of the best kinds of U locks along with types of chains and pad locks to choose between.

Don't be fooled by "heavy duty" bike chains. There is no 16mm thick bike chain, but there is 16mm and possibly thicker bike U-lock. 16mm is the magic number that makes 1m long bolt cutters useless, even when one handle is resting on the floor and a heavy guy trying to jump onto the other. The jaws are spread so wide, that you can not put any significant leverage on handles. And bolt cutters are one of the quiet type tools for the job, so it's fairly important you eliminate those. Unfortunatelly, u-locks are not good for a large steed in some kind of a stand.

I guess you really don't know about Hammer Drilling you didn't wear any dust protection they do make cordless SDS hammer drillsThe silicone dust from concrete is very dangerous you think a couple holes no different heads up

Nice one Doddy. Been waiting on a security vid from GMBN. Wish you guys would talk about the locks themselves in detail and the chains used. Round chains vs Hexagonal shape and the diameter of lock u-shape vs cutters or grinders. Makes for a few videos I suppose. There are a lot of info out there on the subject but some not so reliable and would be a waste of money to buy junk right off the bat. Thanks again for what you guys do at GMBN

Rub some fresh Dog Eggs on your ground anchors for added protection from thieves…🐶(Or if your nostrils are too sensitive, get one of those fake ones)PS: You can't use a hammer drill on concrete. it has to be SDS, those pebbles will destroy most drills.

There is easy option to fix to concrete and it may not be permanent. They are called concrete screws or thunderbolts. Drill holes and they just screw into holes with no permanent inserts required. Impact gun needed to drive or remove them.

your bike is most likely going to get stolen in a situation where you just pop in a shop for a drink! It happened to me and to other people I know. I always lock it even if someone says they will look after it.

I can definitely see the point in locking bikes in this manner for long-term storage in a less secure location but for the average, everyday use isn't it a little excessive? Wouldn't one ground anchor and an industrial chain be enough to secure bikes? Surely in most people's cases the noise of an angle grinder in the early hours of the morning is enough security?

Just recently had to install a anti-theft device during a hike & bike in Wrangell mnts in Alaska. I forgot/didn't want the extra weight and hassle of a lock in backpack. So when began hiking parked bike at carpark by park rangers and installed my two stinky riding socks across the top tube woven in between cables. I also left it in hardest gear, shoes clipped to peddles, & helmet woven around head tube cables… I was so happy to see my bike was still there… …and a hope for humanity. …or maybe it was the socks that we're the deterent?

So here's a thought;Thief comes in; tries to pick locks, and break chains… unsuccessfully …. but leaves your bikes scuffed and damaged. I'd rather have good insurance, and get my bike replaced I Guess.I do take a good lock with me on holidays, because insurance companies maybe just as bad as thieves in the end. 😛

The problem is sometimes if the thief is in your garage, he also has access to your grinder, bolt cutters or crowbars… consider locking those tools into a cupboard to make it just that much harder… the weakest link is where they will attack, so the cables with minimum rating bring the rest of the system down to that level… Make sure your insurance covers the true value of the bikes, and check the insurance companies requirements are met regarding deadlocks, window locks, etc. Ultimately, attaching a hungry rottweiler on a short lead to the ground anchor is the best solution. Also, a webcam to get an alert on your phone and some footage for the police is a good idea too.

Unfortunately, the ground anchor is only as good as the bike lock being used with it. It doesn’t matter how secure the anchor is, if the lock, cable, chain. etc, can be cut, picked, or otherwise defeated, the floor anchor is essentially worthless.

I'm guessing this security is more applicable to a detached garage/shed and not home? I can definitely understand locking up something with sentimental value that's irreplaceable, but if a thief breaks into our actual home (where bikes live), I think they would be far more interested in going after things like the big screen TVs, jewelry boxes, car/house/storage keys, personal financial paperwork like bank info and tax info, computers/laptops, etc. This stuff is worth far more than bikes and is enough to ruin lives.

Tubular locks can be picked pretty easily with just a tension wrench and paper clip. Best to use a quality padlock and ideally have a MOTION DETECTION SYSTEM in your garage with an alarm. NOISE and TIME are the #1 deterrent for most thieves. If lights kick on and sirens fire up as soon as they enter the garage, that's a much bigger deterrent than any lock system.